How To Turn Patna Into A Smart City For Free

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, was in India last year wanting to help spread internet access through the TV spectrum. You broadcast the internet like you broadcast TV waves. Nitish could talk to Satya and offer Patna as an experimental space for the initiative. If the entire city of Patna can be blanketed with internet broadcast over the TV spectrum, paid for by Microsoft, Patna will end up the smartest city in India. Nitish already has a great personal relationship with Bill Gates. Time to cash on it, maybe?

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today hit out at the Centre for not selecting any city from Bihar in the the list of 20 smart cities and said the BJP-led Union government has no consideration to maintain regional balance. ...... "There is no rule or law before them...something other is going in the country these days," he said........ "There is no 'maryada' (decency), 'niyam' (rules), neither they have any consideration to maintain regional balance," Kumar, who is senior leader of JD(U) said. ....... "This is example of 'andher nagri' (misrule)," the Bihar CM said.

Last November, the company began experimenting with the unused spectrum between TV channels, known as ‘white space‘, to provide internet services to a school in the Srikakulam district in the state of Andhra Pradesh. ...... It’s now extended its pilot testing to the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Nadella said Microsoft plans to work with the central and state governments to bring connectivity using this technology to 500,000 villages across the country. ...... That could be huge for India, where roughly 70 percent of the population inhabits nearly 640,000 villages. ...... Between Nadella’s announcement and Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s plan to bring public Wi-Fi to 400 train stations in India, it looks like Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley is proving to be rather fruitful for the millions of citizens who are yet to log on to the Web for the first time.

Google is testing solar-powered drones at Spaceport America, a New Mexico facility that formerly played host to Virgin Galactic. ....... The project, codenamed SkyBender, aims to test several prototype transcievers and drones using millimeter wave radio transmissions. ...... Millimeter transmissions occupy the 28GHz frequency and although the range is shorter than that of current 4G technologies, the speeds are incredible. ..... Theoretically milimeter wave technology can transfer multiple gigabits of data per second, up to 40 times more than current 4G LTE systems.

Microsoft has announced its plans to bring Internet connectivity across the country completely free of cost. ...... Microsoft has proposed to make use of

the “white space” or the unused spectrum between two TV channels

, to make Internet connectivity to a vast population an economically-viable solution. .......

Unlike Wi-Fi, which has a range of only about 100 metres, the 200-300 MHz spectrum in the white space can reach up to 10 km. This spectrum currently belongs to the government-owned Doordarshan TV channel and is not used at all.

....... The initiative seems to have come right in time when PM Narendra Modi has announced his Digital India project. The project that would cost $1.2 billion aims to connect 250,000 gram panchayats in order to make Internet connectivity accessible to every part of the country. The project has garnered the interest of several tech giants, including Facebook and Microsoft, who have shown their willingness to offer support to make it a reality.

National and international bodies assign different frequencies for specific uses, and in most cases license the rights to broadcast over these frequencies. This frequency allocation process creates a bandplan, which for technical reasons assigns white space between used radio bands or channels to avoid interference. In this case, while the frequencies are unused, they have been specifically assigned for a purpose, such as a guard band. Most commonly however, these white spaces exist naturally between used channels, since assigning nearby transmissions to immediately adjacent channels will cause destructive interference to both. In addition to white space assigned for technical reasons, there is also unused radio spectrum which has either never been used, or is becoming free as a result of technical changes. In particular, the switchover to digital television frees up large areas between about 50 MHz and 700 MHz. This is because digital transmissions can be packed into adjacent channels, while analog ones cannot. This means that the band can be "compressed" into fewer channels, while still allowing for more transmissions. ...... In the United States, the abandoned television frequencies are primarily in the upper UHF "700-megahertz" band, covering TV channels 52 to 69 (698 to 806 MHz). U.S. television and its white spaces will continue to exist in UHF frequencies, as well as VHF frequencies for which mobile users and white-space devices require larger antennas. In the rest of the world, the abandoned television channels are VHF, and the resulting large VHF white spaces are being reallocated for the worldwide (except the U.S.) digital radio standard DAB and DAB+, and DMB.

In even the most developed countries, there are huge gaps in internet access. Fixed broadband access is unaffordable for 3.9 billion people around the world. In the U.S., about 72 percent of people have home broadband internet access, but 60 million people are still living without it. ....... White Space stands to transform the way we purchase and use wireless internet. It isn't yet widely adopted, but this unlicensed, free form of broadband is gaining traction. ........... Typical home Wi-Fi can travel through two walls.

White Space broadband can travel up to 10 kilometers, through vegetation, buildings, and other obstacles.

Tablets, phones, and computers can all access this wireless internet using White Space through fixed or portable power stations. The actual amounts of spectrum vary by region, but White Space spectrum ranges from 470 MHz to 790 Mhz........ In 2011, Wilmington, North Carolina implemented White Space technology to connect the city's infrastructure, allowing public officials to remotely turn lights on and off in parks, provide public wireless broadband to certain areas of the city, and monitor water levels. At West Virginia University, White Space technology is used to power a "super Wi-Fi network". It started in 2013 with wireless internet on the campus public transit platform, which transports about 15,000 students a day. WVU is the first campus to utilize White Space broadband internet. ....... "The Gigabit Libraries program is using TVWS devices to deliver Internet service to local libraries and a number of operators in rural areas are using these devices to provide service to homes and businesses in rural areas" .........

Google and Microsoft are already chasing the emerging White Space market in Africa, where only 16 percent of the population is online. Because the waves can travel up to 10 kilometers in radius, it is great for remote, off-the-grid villages.

...... Microsoft's 4Afrika initiative is focusing on White Space technology throughout the continent, hoping to bring millions of people online, and has projects in place in Tanzania and South Africa. ...... Rural areas, both in the U.S. and abroad, are often inhibited from wireless access because they are inaccessible and off the local power grid. Cell towers are difficult to install and can't connect, either. Fortunately, White Space power stations can be charged with solar panels, and the excess electricity generated can also power other institutions in the area such as schools....... With a cell tower or other device, the White Space technology can travel 10 kilometers and service many more customers at one time. ....... Microsoft has implemented White Space projects throughout Asia, including a recent deployment in Singapore through partnerships with Singapore government research agencies and a UK wireless service provider in areas where vegetation makes wireless access difficult. In conjunction with its projects in Europe, Microsoft is also creating a database for White Space in the U.S., much like Google's. ........

Internet service providers were ranked the lowest customer service satisfaction of any industry in America, according to American Customer Satisfaction Index's most recent survey. The two largest providers, Comcast and Time Warner, were ranked the lowest out of all internet service providers.

...... So far, the FCC has allowed very few internet service providers to license the White Space spectrum. Hopefully, they will continue to be cautious about who they allow to purchase the spectrum so that it can be a disruptive force in connecting more people to the internet.

White space, or buffer channels, refers to the unused channels between the VHF and UHF spectrum. In the pre-cable era, when over-the-air broadcasts ruled the day, these buffers were used to prevent broadcasters from interfering with one another. We all know how prevalent over-the-air broadcasting is now; today this spectrum is largely unused. ...... a super Wi-Fi network knitted together with next-generation TV or smart remotes. ...... wireless data could be transmitted over UHF channels during active TV broadcasts without interference. ......

The UHF spectrum, which ranges from 400 to 700 MHz, is superior to the higher-frequency signals used for existing Wi-Fi hotspots

...... as these signals carry for miles and are not blocked by walls or trees.

White spaces in the radio spectrum can now be used for anything from wireless flood defences to city-wide Wi-Fi. Services using the technology could appear before the end of the year with surplus spectrum filling in gaps where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth fail. ........ The spare spectrum comes from bands currently shared by digital TV and wireless microphones. ..... Broadly the technology will allow internet of things devices to communicate with one another and the internet. White space spectrum could also improve broadband coverage in rural areas and boost Wi-Fi signals in crowded cities. ...... King's College London is currently researching how white space spectrum could be used to improve broadband coverage by linking white space connections between buildings. The technology could also be used to add extra capacity to crowded networks.